Bring your own key

Instead of paying a markup on someone else's inference, you point ShipFlow at your own account. You decide which model drafts PRDs and which model performs the deeper, more expensive review pass.

1. 1

   Create an OpenRouter account

   Sign up at openrouter.ai and add credits (or connect your own provider keys inside OpenRouter).
2. 2

   Generate an API key

   Open Keys → Create Key. Copy the value — you will only see it once.
3. 3

   Add it to your environment

   Set the key as an environment variable so ShipFlow can use it for every model call.

Add the following to your environment file:

# apps/web/.env.local

# Your OpenRouter API key — powers all ShipFlow model calls
OPENROUTER_API_KEY="sk-or-..."

That is the only key required to enable AI features. Restart the dev server (or redeploy) after changing it.

Model routing is centralized in one file, so swapping models is a one-line change rather than a search-and-replace across the codebase.

// apps/web/src/lib/ai/models.ts

export const models = {
  // Structured work: PRDs, task breakdowns, clarifying questions
  fast: openrouter("google/gemini-2.5-flash"),

  // Code review: needs to catch subtle bugs & security issues
  review: openrouter("anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"),
} as const;

With your own key, model requests go directly to the provider you selected through OpenRouter. Your repositories are used only to generate reviews and artifacts for you — never to train models.